Path of the Mana Blade
A mysterious but well known thing to those who are aware of mana and mana usage. Something that weapons users are unaware of, because they focus so much on the usage of ki and weapons, is that they have driven the wedge between themselves and mages that much further than in the past. While mages and weapon users never really got along that well, it just got worse at some point. To the degree that there were even some weapon users who completely and utterly cut themselves off from all things related to mages, along with looking down upon them for merely using mana differently themselves, as they might have even forgotten that ki was just internal mana, as opposed to mages who use mostly external mana.
Regardless, the Path of the Mana Blade is an ancient fairy tale about someone capable of using both a blade and magic together. There are many different versions of the fairy tale since it is never stated what type of blade, after all. As blade could be referring to any weapon that has a blade at all, from a dagger, to swords, to greatswords, to even things like spears or even throwing weapons. Everything that has a blade would be fair game after all. Those who follow the Path of the Mana Blade are neither traditional mages nor weapon users, either. They are something that is within the middle of the two; thus, they play by different rules than everyone else, so that it is strictly one or the other.
Just because one was a mage, though, does not mean that they primarily use staffs, rods, actual wands, books, etc, though. Those are things that were imposed about mages at an early age as a means to a wand by the time they became a pre teen after all. The usage of magic that mages are capable of has been researched, and there are those who, once they discover their kid and/or themselves are mages at an early enough age they are imposed something that would align more with the image of a mage, as those things do help in making them a powerful mage after all. The focus on their mana into magic can make them more powerful, but that does lead to a bottleneck where they have narrowed their view down to a vast but albeit limited amount of pathways. The vastness of that limited path was indeed quite large, like the oceans of the world. Even though the oceans of the world are unexplored, the depth of magic and their knowledge of them are the same as their knowledge about the depth of the oceans. There is always something new to discover as one can view and even explore the depths of magic, but they can not truly reach the bottom and explore the entirety of the depths, however.
This is why there are probably so many mages that have limited themselves to just what fits the traditional view of a mage, just like how weapon users have limited themselves to what they view as the usage of ki. Mages, while aware that magic is just them using external mana to fuel their magic, do not go beyond the realms of magic any more than a weapon user goes into the more detailed aspects of their usage of internal mana that is ki. It would not be that shocking if they were even unaware of what ki was, despite them being the most skilled and constant users of it. To the point where weapon users can be using ki as second nature, thus never needing to be taught how to use it, as they are just born with that knowledge and thus never need to be told about it or how they are using it. A weapon user that is more closely involved with mages or a mage that has a weapon as their wand would be more familiar with the concepts as a result of them not being on the middle of the spectrum, rather than the far ends like those of the Sabre family or their equivalent mage families.
Wands that were not traditional mage wands were not rare, just that those that did not have one were those that focused more on their own unique style of mana usage rather than the accepted and traditional form of magic. After all, a wand could be anything and everything that one focused their mana into until their pre teen years normally. Those with abnormally high ability to gather internal mana would awaken as a mage soon, and the more profound and directly linked to mages as a whole, the earlier one would awaken as a mage. Thus, it was possible that those in this case would not even have a chance to pick something they wanted to serve as their wand for the rest of their lives, as it was picked for them before they were even able to make this choice themselves. While it worked out a majority of the time, there were other times when it did not.
Anyway, this relates to the Path of the Mana Blade in the fact that one would have their mana being that of a blade, where they are capable of wielding mana as a blade itself. Their wand and weapon are not traditional ones or the other, but a true fusion of them both. It was considered a fairy tale because one could follow a path that required them to use both ki and magic at the exact same time.
A feat that was considered the same as:
Singing masterfully at the highest levels...but underwater
Running and winning a race at your full speed... while answering complex questions that require your full focus
Fighting a massive crowd of people.....while free falling towards the ground
These things were not impossible to do; however, they were impractical and even more so unlikely that anyone could even do them at the level required for it to work properly.
That's where those who question the normal view of mana usage for both weapon users and magic came in, though